Will Dems really cut death tax?

One of the most significant votes in the recent Senate budget vote-o-rama was on the federal death tax. Not the predictable vote on full repeal, which just two Democrats supported, but the vote on an amendment offered by Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia that created a deficit-neutral reserve fund for "the repeal or reduction of the estate tax." It racked up 80 votes, including 35 Democrats. Zero Republicans and just 19 Democrats voted no. So the Senate has voted overwhelmingly to at least reduce the death tax.

The federal death tax snapped back into effect in 2011 after one year of full repeal . For two years the tax was set at a 35 percent rate. Now, the death tax is permanently set at 40 percent, empowering the IRS to take nearly half of everything some Americans leave to their loved ones.

It's wrong because people work a whole lifetime paying taxes every step of the way. The death tax is an unfair double tax. It's wrong because rather than taxing income it confiscates assets, directly reducing the country's capital stock and therefore destroying jobs with a viciousness unmatched by other taxes.

It's wrong because many family farms and businesses are worth millions according to the IRS - but only if they are liquidated.

The economic damage created by the current regime of IRS confiscation of 40 percent of everything above $5 million is staggering. According to an analysis by former Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin conducted in 2010, when the death tax was zero, a 40 percent tax destroys 978,600 family business jobs.

It is the "worst tax - that is, the least fair" according to polling by the Tax Foundation. The most comprehensive review of public opinion on the issue by two liberal Yale professors, Mayling Birney and Ian Shapiro, found: "Many polls since the late 1990s have shown widespread public support for estate tax repeal, in the range of 60, 70 or 80 percent. Moreover, supporters appear to be spread more or less equally across income groups, contrary to what self-interest would predict."

Do the 35 Democrats who voted for the amendment have any sincere desire to reduce the hated tax, or do they only want to inoculate themselves from the political consequences of opposing repeal?

There is an easy test. Where is the Democratic bill? Republicans, like the American people, overwhelmingly support full repeal.

If the Democrats who voted for "repeal or reduction" don't introduce and pass a bill following through on a position supposedly supported by 80 percent of the Senate, then we can safely assume they were simply politically posturing and are content to allow the tax to remain at its present level. That's wrong.

- Email Phil Kerpen at phil@americancommitment.org.

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Will Dems really cut death tax?

One of the most significant votes in the recent Senate budget vote-o-rama was on the federal death tax. Not the predictable vote on full repeal, which just two Democrats supported, but the vote on an